


Holly March's Dad Dating Service

by PR Zed (przed)



Category: The Nice Guys (2016)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-19 11:54:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17001189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/przed/pseuds/PR%20Zed
Summary: Her dad and Mr. Healy are good guys.  The Nice Guys.  And together, the two of them make up one mostly responsible parent.  That's what she tells Jessica, anyway, when Jessica's parents finally let her come over to their new house for a sleepover after they've gotten over the whole being thrown through a plate glass window by an assassin incident."They should be boyfriends," Jessica says.Wait."What?" Holly says, freezing in place as she feels the world reset around her.





	Holly March's Dad Dating Service

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sanguinarily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanguinarily/gifts).



Holly March has had a lot of life experience. Heck, she's probably had more life experience than any kid in her grade. Maybe even more than any high school senior in Los Angeles. Okay, maybe not all of Los Angeles. A lotta weird stuff goes on in Los Angeles. But definitely more than any high school senior in West Hollywood. 

After all, most kids haven't been kidnapped from a porn king's party by a blue-faced psycho. Or nearly been killed by a hired assassin who looked like John Boy in The Waltons. (Okay, the John Boy assassin had tried to kill Jessica, too, and then thrown her through a plate glass window, but Jessica's fine. Except for the nightmares. And who doesn't have nightmares?) 

And most kids don't have a dad who's a not-entirely-ethical private investigator who drinks too much, with a business partner who used to beat people up for a living.

Wait. That makes her dad and Mr. Healy sound like bad people. Holly is sure they aren't bad people. Well, pretty sure, anyway. Not anymore. They're The Nice Guys. It says so on their business cards. The same business cards that Holly had printed for them. And hey, if her dad sometimes takes jobs that he could have solved in under an hour and drags them out to a week, with extra expenses, he only does it when he knows the mark, um, client, has enough money to spare. And if Mr. Healy sometimes comes to their house with his hands bruised up, she is absolutely confident that whoever's jaw busted up his knuckles one hundred percent deserved it.

After all, Mr. Healy has saved her life. And her dad's life. (Yeah, Mr. Healy broke her dad's arm, but that was before they really got to know each other.)

No, her dad and Mr. Healy are good guys. The Nice Guys. And together, the two of them make up one mostly responsible parent. That's what she tells Jessica, anyway, when Jessica's parents finally let her come over to their new house for a sleepover after they've gotten over the whole being thrown through a plate glass window by an assassin incident.

"They should be boyfriends," Jessica says.

Wait.

"What?" Holly says, freezing in place as she feels the world reset around her. 

"Boyfriends," Jessica repeats. "If they were boyfriends, they could both be your dad." Jessica takes a slurping sip of Dr. Pepper before she continues. "You know, like Wendy at school. Her mom ran off with a banker, and her dad started dating an actor who's mostly a waiter, and now she's got two dads. She says it's the best. Her real dad helps with her homework and her actor dad gives her advice about makeup and boys."

Holly's dad has never once helped her with her homework, and she thinks Mr. Healy's advice about boys might be more an offer to beat up the bad ones, but she's one hundred per cent on board with having them both as her dad. And, hey, it could happen. 

First of all, her dad and Mr. Healy obviously like each other. Okay, maybe they don't _like_ like each other yet, but they get along. They're friends. Underneath all the bickering, anyway.

Second of all, she knows her dad, at least, would be willing to consider a boyfriend. Dad might still be pretty much a mess over Mom dying, but he's not a monk, and he's brought people home before. Holly's woken up more than once to find a slightly hungover, slightly embarrassed-looking man eating cereal in their kitchen.

She's not so sure how Mr. Healy would handle having a boyfriend, though. He's mentioned a couple of times that he used to be married, but it doesn't sound like he enjoyed it so much. Maybe he'll do better with a boyfriend.

But if they're going to get together, Holly is one hundred percent sure she's going to have to be the one to make it happen.

She blinks and realizes that Jessica is saying something to her.

"What?" Holly says again.

Jessica looks at her closely and her eyes narrow.

"You're going to try and get them together, aren't you?"

"Maybe," Holly says with a shrug, hedging her bets.

"Cool," Jessica says. "Can I help?"

* * *

The problem is, two thirteen-year-old girls, however smart they think they are, have no idea how to trick two grown men into becoming boyfriends. 

"It's not like we can pass your dad a note in Social Studies saying a boy likes him," Jessica says with a shrug.

"You've never passed _anyone_ a note in Social Studies," Holly says, annoyed, as she considers and discards half a dozen ideas.

"Of course, I haven't," Jessica says. "Have you _seen_ the boys in our class? They're gross."

Holly ignores Jessica, not that she isn't right, because she's got the perfect idea.

"Dinner," Holly says. "Adults go on dinner dates."

"How are you going to convince them to go out for dinner?"

"By not having them go out. I'll invite Mr. Healy _here_ for dinner."

"Will your dad let you do that?"

Holly gives Jessica a look in response. Jessica knows her dad, knows that Holly is the one who runs their house. Holly makes sure there's milk in the fridge and bread on the counter and Yoo-hoo whenever she wants it. If she wants to invite her dad's business partner over for dinner, that'll just be one more thing she's made happen.

So, she tells her dad that they should have Mr. Healy over for dinner, and that she'll handle it. And she invites Mr. Healy over for dinner, telling him it was her dad's idea. She talks her dad into buying a nice bottle of wine, something Italian in a bottle wrapped in raffia, because it strikes her that neither the beer Mr. Healy likes nor the cheap booze her dad usually drinks works for a romantic evening.

She makes Swedish meatballs and Jello mold salad, because they're the fanciest recipes she knows. And shortly after Mr. Healy arrives, she has Jessica call and invite her over for a fake homework emergency, leaving them both alone to figure out that they're on a date.

It doesn't work.

She stays over at Jessica's that night, hoping she'll find Mr. Healy eating cereal in their kitchen, but all she finds is her dad with a slightly worse than usual hangover.

"Never mix red wine with vodka, honey," her dad says as he struggles with the coffee maker.

"Where's Mr. Healy?" Holly asks as she pushes her dad out of the way and takes over coffee production.

"Jack?" her dad says. "Home, I guess." He slumps against the counter and holds his head in his hands.

"He didn't stay over?" Holly asks, still hopeful that her plan may have worked.

"We're not 13-year-old girls," her dad says. "We don't have sleepovers."

Holly bites her tongue and doesn't ask about the other men, and women, who apparently _have_ had sleepovers with her dad. Instead, she finishes making the coffee, and pours her dad a mug and gives it to him black because her plan has clearly failed and she's feeling mean.

* * *

"Sports," Jessica says three days later during lunch period.

"What?" Holly says. She's not really paying attention to Jessica. She's staring at a couple of boys from their class who are punching each other in the arm and then laughing hysterically, and wondering if they'll ever stop being stupid.

"Sports," Jessica says again, which isn't at all helpful. "Boys like sports. Does your dad like sports?"

"Uh, I guess," Holly says, confused about where this is going.

"And I bet Mr. Healy likes sports. We should get them tickets to a Lakers game or something. Send them on a second date."

"I don't think they had a first date," Holly points out. 

"They had one. They just didn't _realize_ they had one. And now they need to have another one."

"Okay." Holly is with the program again. "But how are we going to get Lakers tickets?"

"My dad has season tickets for clients. He keeps them in his desk. I can steal a pair for a game next week. He never remembers which ones he's already given away."

Jessica has told Holly that she wants to join the CIA when she grows up. At times like this, Holly thinks she may just end up running the place.

So, Jessica steals tickets for a game the next week, Lakers versus the Celtics, and the next time Mr. Healy drops her dad off after they've been working a missing person case, she runs after him and catches him just as he's getting into his car.

"I got you these," she says, pushing the tickets at him through his open window. "So you could, you know, ask my dad out." Her voice trails off as she realizes how little she'd thought this part of the plan through and how this must sound.

Mr. Healy tilts his head and gives her a look. 

Holly keeps her own expression neutral, even when Mr. Healy raises an eyebrow at her.

"You invited me over for dinner, and now you want me to ask your dad out?" he says.

"My _dad_ invited you over for dinner," she says firmly, keeping to her story.

"Uh huh," he says, and raises his eyebrow a titch further.

"Look, do you want the tickets or not." She waves them around and he finally takes them.

"Do I want to know where _you_ got Lakers tickets?" he asks, and Holly's not sure if he sounds impressed or disapproving. Maybe it's both.

"They're from Jessica's dad," she says, sidestepping the fact that Jessica's dad has no idea where these tickets have gone.

"Well, if they're from Jessica's dad…" Mr. Healy says, and looks down at the tickets in his hand. 

"You gotta promise you'll take my dad," Holly insists.

"I promise." Mr. Healy says. His eyebrow is back where it belongs, and now he's looking at her with an almost soft expression that makes her want to squirm.

"Well, good," she says, then squares her shoulders and walks back to the house, as she hears Mr. Healy's car start up behind her.

She wants her dad and Mr. Healy to be boyfriends. She really does. But she's starting to wonder exactly what she's getting herself into.

* * *

"Jack invited me to a Lakers game," her dad says a couple of days later. "Hope that's okay." 

"That's great!" Holly tries to sound enthusiastic, but not _too_ enthusiastic. Just enthusiastic enough. Goldilocks enthusiastic.

"I guess," her dad says, then reaches for the whisky bottle that's always stashed behind the bread box. He pours himself a glass, and Holly bites her tongue at how full that glass is. 

"You'll have a great time," Holly says.

Her dad looks at her with an expression that might be a frown, and then takes a swig of whisky.

Her dad's been moping around since Mr. Healy came over for dinner, and acting weirder than usual whenever Mr. Healy comes over to pick him up for a job. He even forgot to (over)charge a client for expenses yesterday.

Holly's not completely sure what it means. Does he have a crush on Mr. Healy? (That would be great, but do grownups get crushes?) Is he really not interested in Mr. Healy, but doesn't know how to tell him? (That would be bad. That would be the worst.)

She decides she's going to ignore her dad's mood, and just pretend that everything is okay. She's good at pretending. When the social worker at school asked her six months ago if her dad was an alcoholic, she pretended she was a normal, well-adjusted kid whose mom was dead and whose dad just had the occasional drink. 

She pretends a lot in the five days before the Lakers date, and pretends some more when Mr. Healy shows up at their door to take her dad to the game, looking slightly less rumpled than usual.

"It was so great you could get tickets for you and my dad," she says loudly, pretending the heck out of not know where the tickets came from.

"Wasn't it?" Mr. Healy says, his eyebrows raising back to his hairline. "You ready, Holland?" he calls back into the house.

"Yeah." Her dad appears, and he's actually changed his shirt and combed his hair and he smells more like aftershave than alcohol, like he's treating this like a real date. "Let's go."

"Don't answer the door to any strangers, honey," he says as he kisses the top of her head. "And don't invite Jessica over. I don't care what they said. I don't think her parents are really over the whole plate glass window thing."

"Sure, Dad," she lies, giving him a quick hug.

She doesn't open the door to any strangers, but she does invite Jessica over. Jessica tells her parents she's going over to Janet's. Holly's gotten really good at sounding like Janet on the phone.

"Did they actually go?" Jessica asks before she even says hello.

"They did. My dad even got himself spruced up for it."

"They're going to be boyfriends," Jessica says with a squeal. "And it's going to be all because of me!"

"And me!"

"I got the tickets."

"But I gave them to Mr. Healy."

"Okay, it'll be because of both of us." Jessica looks at her longingly. "You're so lucky. Mr. Healy is great." Jessica's had a bit of a crush on Mr. Healy since he rescued them from the killer John Boy hit man.

They listen to the game on the radio and do their nails, and Jessica makes sure she leaves for home right after the game ends. 

"Call me and tell me what happens," she tells Holly. "Tell me if they kiss!"

Holly pushes her out the door and slams it behind her, but she's smiling when she does it. She's sure their plan is going to work this time.

She practically paces behind the door, waiting for her dad to come home, hoping maybe he'll pull Mr. Healy in behind him. But when she finally hears a car out front and throws open the door, there's no kiss, no Mr. Healy coming in for a drink or for the night, there's just her dad hopping out of the car and Mr. Healy speeding away.

"Did you have a nice time?" Holly asks as her dad gets close to the porch. His hair is mussed and his shirt is open a few more buttons than it was when he left, which are hopeful signs.

"Yeah, sure," he says, pushing past her and leaving her to close the door.

He doesn't offer any further explanation, and heads straight for the kitchen and the whisky bottle behind the bread box, and that doesn't make it look like he had a nice time.

He doesn't even bother to pour the whisky in a glass, just tucks the bottle under his arm and heads for his room.

"Did the Lakers win, at least?" she calls after him. The only answer is the slam of his door.

* * *

Thing are weird for the next week.

Her dad goes through more bottles of cheap booze than he has since her mom died. Mr. Healy stops coming by to drive her dad to talk to clients. And almost every afternoon after school Holly gets a call from her dad to pick him up because he's too drunk to get behind the wheel.

"Why don't you just drive in with Mr. Healy," she asks the next time he's heading out on his own to track down a runaway husband. She and Jessica have plans after school and she doesn't want them interrupted by another trip to a Hollywood bar to drive her dad home.

"He's got things to do. Surveillance and reports and stuff."

"Don't say 'and stuff,'" she says automatically. And that's how she knows for sure that something happened between him and Mr. Healy. Her dad may forget to make dinner or buy milk or tell her to brush her teeth, but he never forgets to tell her not to say "and stuff." And he _never_ says it himself.

She thinks back to his mussed hair and unbuttoned shirt from the night of the basketball game, and she wonders how exactly he got that way. Did he kiss Mr. Healy? Did Mr. Healy kiss him?

"Maybe they kissed each other and they both hated it," Jessica offers during lunch period the next day. "Which would be awful. I still think they should be boyfriends."

"Me, too," Holly says, and chews morosely on her peanut butter and jelly sandwich. This isn't just about getting two dads anymore. She honestly thinks her dad and Mr. Healy will be happier if they've got each other to lean on. Maybe her dad would drink less and Mr. Healy would smile more.

But she and Jessica are fresh out of ideas of how to get them dating, and her dad is heading for the kind of crash that had her pretending to the school social worker almost every day after her mom's funeral.

She doesn't know how she's going to make it better.

* * *

The way to make it better is, apparently, for it to get worse.

Holly gets kidnapped.

On one of the few nights he was sober enough to make much sense, her dad told her that the Nice Guys have been chasing down a deadbeat ex-husband who’s behind on his alimony. Only problem is, the guy isn’t just a deadbeat ex-husband. He’s also a deadbeat ex-mob enforcer who ran with a bunch of money from his boss and really doesn’t want to be found. 

So, he snatches Holly on her way back from the grocery store one afternoon, throws her in his trunk, and tells her dad he can have her back if the Nice Guys leave him alone.

He’s not completely horrible, as kidnappers go. Not scary like Blue Face, or homicidal, like John Boy. When he threw her in his trunk, he made sure there was a comfortable blanket in there for her to lie on. He doesn't tie her up, just keeps her locked in a windowless room with a mostly comfortable cot, and a bathroom attached. And he teaches her to play pinochle while they’re waiting for her dad’s response.

Holly almost feels sorry for the guy. He may be a big, tough ex-mob guy, but Mr. Healy is going to destroy him when he finds them.

“So,” she says after she's won her first game of pinochle. “You beat people up for a living? I’ve got a friend who used to do that.”

“First of all," Deadbeat Ex says, puffing out his chest and pulling back his shoulders, "I didn’t beat people up for a living. I was a Security Consultant for a Waste Management firm.” Holly can practically hear the capital letters. “Second, I don’t see Jack Healy being friends with a kid.”

“Shows what you know,” she says. “He’s my second-best friend."

"Second best," Deadbeat Ex says, giving her the sort of skeptical look adults always give her when they think they know more than she does.

"Well, Jessica is my best friend, on account of my knowing her longer. But Mr. Healy is right after. He's saved my life. Multiple times." She looks Deadbeat Ex in the eye and tries to project her absolute certainty that Mr. Healy is going to save her this time, too, and that he's going to beat up Deadbeat Ex just for the fun of it.

"I bet he has," Deadbeat Ex says, sounding completely unconvinced as he's shuffling the cards for another game. "I should get something for dinner. Do you like pizza, kid?"

She _does_ like pizza. With pineapple. And it's worth it to see Deadbeat Ex's nose wrinkle up when she tells him her topping choice.

"Fruit on a pizza," he says with a curl of his lip. "That ain't natural."

"Neither is kidnapping defenseless little kids," she says, making her eyes as big as she can.

"You may be a lot of things, kid," he says, "but I get the feeling that defenseless isn't one of them."

Just for that, she makes sure she beats him five games in a row.

* * *

Three days, she's stuck in that poky little room with no one but Deadbeat Ex for company. 

On the third day, during what must be about the five millionth game of pinochle they've played, there's a knock on the door. Deadbeat Ex looks nervous, like he wasn't expecting anyone, so Holly knows this is it: the big rescue. He locks her in the room, and she crouches in a corner, out of the way in case there's any fighting or shooting or anything.

"Who is it?" she hears Deadbeat Ex ask.

"Gas company," Mr. Healy says, and she has never been so glad to hear his voice. "We got word there's a leak."

"There's no leak," says Deadbeat Ex. "You've got the wrong place."

"Nah, this is the place all right. I got the address right here on my work order."

"I told you-" Deadbeat Ex starts to say, but then there's a crash and shouting and Holly takes a big breath and holds it.

She can still hear the sounds of fighting when the door to the room bursts open.

"Holly!" her dad says. She nearly knocks him over, she's on her feet and hugging him so fast. 

"Daddy!" she says, and then she's crying in her dad's arms. She's spent the last three days not showing a bit of fear in front of Deadbeat Ex, but now that she's safe, she feels every ounce of the panic and dread she's been pushing down flood through her veins.

"Is she okay, Holland?" she hears Mr. Healy say, and then he's in the room beside them. "Are you okay, Holly?" She feels a light touch on the top of her head, and looks up to see Mr. Healy looking down at her, more concerned than she's ever seen him.

Her throat is tight and prickly so she can't talk, but she nods and then buries her face in her dad's chest again.

"Did you hurt him, Jack?" her dad asks Mr. Healy.

"Yeah."

"How much?" 

"Enough."

"Good," her dad says firmly and his arms tighten around her. She doesn't think she's ever heard her dad sound so vicious before. "Thank you, Jack."

"You're welcome, Holland."

She pulls away from her dad in time to see Mr. Healy look at him with an expression that one day, if she's lucky, she may see on the face of a boy she's in love with. And her dad's got pretty much the same expression on his face.

Looks like her dad and Mr. Healy are, finally, boyfriends. And she wasn't even around to see it happen.

* * *

The next few hours are utter chaos.

There's an ambulance for her, even though she swears she doesn't need it, and cops for Deadbeat Ex, even though he swears he's the one who needs the ambulance. And through it all her dad and Mr. Healy are hovering around her, getting her water, calling nurses in the ER, and holding her hand when she spends five minutes solid shaking in relief while a doctor tells her that she's in shock but she'll be fine.

When the same doctor finally clears her to go home, Mr. Healy brings his car around and her dad gets into the back seat with her, and she spends the whole trip with her head resting on her dad's shoulder while her body fights a war between exhaustion and adrenaline.

She doesn't really remember getting home, but she wakes in her own bed feeling calm for the first time in four days.

She stumbles out to the kitchen, and finds Mr. Healy sitting at the table, eating a bowl of the Fruit Brute cereal she saves for weekends and special occasions. He's wearing a t-shirt that she's sure is her dad's, and a pair of sweatpants that she's never seen before. She can see the couch hasn't been slept on, and on the way down the hall she saw that the spare bedroom was untouched, too, so that means Mr. Healy spent the night with her dad.

She sits down across from him, her hands folded in front of her, and assumes a serious expression, even though she feels absolutely giddy.

"So," she says. "You and my dad…"

Mr. Healy swallows a mouthful of cereal and smiles at her. It's a quiet smile, slightly shy, slightly smug.

"Yeah," he says, not even bothering to deny it, though after a few seconds his smile slides sideways into a worried grimace. “You don’t mind?”

“No.” She kicks him under the table with her bare foot. “Of course, I don’t mind. After all, who invited you to dinner?”

"You said it was your dad."

“Like you believed that. You've seen my dad. He's hopeless."

"Not entirely," Mr. Healy says, and the smile is back in his eyes.

"Who got you tickets to the Lakers?” she asks.

“You did.”

"Yes, I did. So, no, I don't mind. I've been trying to get you together for weeks. Well, Jessica and I have. But if you hurt my dad, I'll do more than kick you in the shins."

Mr. Healy crunches on another spoonful of Fruit Brute, and she can see the gears turning in his head.

"I can teach you," he says. "How to do more than kick me in the shins. Well, not me, specifically, because I'm not planning on hurting your dad. But I can teach you how to fight the bad guys." He crunches through more cereal, then adds, "And boys who are creeps."

Holly smiles as wide as she can. Having Mr. Healy as a second dad is going to be so much cooler than having an actor dad. Holly is just about to tell him that when there's the sound of soft footsteps coming down the hall.

The two of them turn, and there's her dad, Holland March, looking tired and dishevelled and, against all odds, happy.

He slides into the chair between the two of them and grabs one of Holly's hands even as he takes hold of one of Mr. Healy's. 

He turns to Holly, his expression tentative, as if he's waiting for judgment from her. She doesn't keep him waiting.

"Boyfriends?" she asks.

"Boyfriends," he says.

"Good," she says, right before she leans toward him for a big, comforting hug that ends up taking in Mr. Healy as well.

She knows her life isn't suddenly going to become perfect. 

Holly March has had a lot of life experience. Enough experience to know that her dad is an unorganized alcoholic whose problems aren't going to be magically solved by having a boyfriend. Especially not a boyfriend who formerly made (and sometimes currently makes) a living beating people up.

But it can't hurt, him having someone he cares about again. Someone besides his daughter. And it can't hurt Mr. Healy, knowing there are at least two people in the world who see him as one of The Nice Guys, not a guy you hire for his right hook.

All-in-all, Holly thinks, things are definitely going to get better.

And she can't wait to tell Jessica.


End file.
